CONGRESSIONAL RECORD - SENATE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP75-00149R000100090007-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: November 11, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 22, 1998
• Sequence Number: 7
• Publication Date: May 4, 1964
• Content Type: SUMMARY

FOIAb3b r Y 4 1964
Sanitized - Approvedor Release
1964 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD W-P 9579
WHY THE U.S. ATTEMPT TO EM- To make matters worse, sugar production There being no objection, the article
BARGO CASTRO IS FAILING also declined. Experienced managers fled the was ordered to be printed in the RECORD,
country, leaving students to run plantations as follows:
Mr. ALLOTT. Mr. President, I have and mills. Following Communist dogma,
discussed, with two or three other Morn- Castro also attempted to diversify Cuban THE GREAT A-11 DECEPTION
in Cuba. I submit for the RECORD, and was planted in other crops; money was spent in the unemotional, droning tones that
ask unanimous consent to have made a for machinery rather than fertilizer. Cuba's he uses for public announcements, President
sugar crop, about 6.8 million tons in 1961. Lyndon B. Johnson recently disclosed that
part of my remarks, an article from fell to 3.8 million tons last year. the United States had secretly built one of
Forbes of April 15, 1964, entitled "Dollars STUPIDITY SPELLS MONEY the most fabulous aircraft ever designed.
Talk Louder Than Diplomats," with re- Castro was saved by his own ineptitude- The new A-11, said the President, could fly
lation to what has happened to our SO- and by sheer luck. As Cuba's sugar produc- for long periods at the incredible speed of
called embargo policy. tion dropped, heavy rains quite literally more than 2,000 miles an hour, spanning the
There being no objection, the article watered down the sugar content of the beet distance from New York to Chicago in less
was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, sugar crop in Europe. World sugar produc- than 30 minutes. It could cruise at alti-
as follows tion fell below the demand of 55 million tons tudes higher than 70,000 feet-probably high
a year. In 1962, the deficit was 3.4 million enough and fast enough to be safe from
DOLLARS TALK LOUDER THAN DIPLOMATS tons; in,1963, 3.7 million. Soviet antiaircraft missiles. Several models
The average American just can't figure it. The law of supply and demand went into of this "advanced experimental jet," the
Britain is selling buses to Castro and France operation. From a January 1962 low of 2.3 President told his February 29 press con-
is dickering to sell him trucks. Spain al- cents a pound, the price of sugar soared to ference, were now undergoing tests "to deter-
ready has sold him 150 trucks and now is 10 cents and 11 cents a pound and even mine their capabilities as long-range inter-
working out a deal to sell him 100 fishing higher. ceptors."
boats and 2 freighters. What goes on? By conservative U.S. Government esti- President Johnson didn't quite say it, but
Didn't the United States fight side by side mates, Castro realized some $225 million in most Americans would not be blamed for
with Britain and Frances in two World Wars cash from sales mostly to Western Europe, taking his words to mean that the United
and aren't they now, presumably, allies of the Arab nations and Japan last year. B States has built the hottest jet fighter In
the United States in NATO? Isn't Spain, Castro's own reports, he has reaped $270 rally history; a plane capable of knocking any
presumably, an anti-Communist country? lion. -Castro is not only prosperous enough enemy bomber out of the sky. And 6 days
Then why should they frustrate the U.S. to buy from Western Europe, but he has also later Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara
attempt to isolate Castro economically by offered to discuss compensating the British- went him one better by announcing that
embargoing all shipments to him, except based Shell Oil Co. for a refinery he confis- "the A-11 is an interceptor aircraft; it is
those of food and medical supplies? cated from it. That would further frustrate being developed as such." The Department
For the answer, the baffled American U.S. foreign policy, for in that case Shell of Defense released a photograph of the air-
should skip the editorial columns of his might resume selling oil to Castro. If the craft that identified it as an interceptor.
newspaper and look at the business and United States attempted to blockade Cuba, In actual fact, the A-11 Is not an inter-
financial section instead. He'll probably find it would have to halt British as well as Rus- captor. Furthermore, It was never designed
it tucked away in a corner, in 6-point type, sian tankers. to be an interceptor. And though future
under the heading "Commodity Prices." How long Castro will ride high is a matter modifications might give it some value as a
What has wrecked the U.S. attempt to of some debate. Sugar futures have fallen. special-mission bomber, there Is no certainty
embargo Castro is not so much the perversity On the New York Coffee & Sugar Exchange that they will prove successful. If the United
of America's allies. It's the law of supply last month, sample contracts were off to 7.9 States today is vulnerable to Soviet attack,
and demand. When Castro came to power cents a pound from a high of 12 cents, to 5.9 the A-il does not make it any less so.
in Cuba, the world price of sugar was 3.27 cents from 7.1 cents, to 7.8 cents from 13 cents The mystery of the A-11 actually is part
cents a pound. It's now about 7 cents a and to 7.4 cents from 8.3 cents. F. O. Licht, of a larger controversy which has long divided
pound. In recent months, it has been as sugar economists, have forecast a deficit of top U.S. officials-the controversy over the
high as 12.16 cents. Castro has money. And only 1.4 million tons this year. And Daniel future of manned aircraft. The Air Force,
Castro's money not only talks for him; it L. Dyer, of B. W. Dyer & Co., New York sugar unwilling to rely entirely on missiles, has
has proved a good deal more persuasive than brokers, says supply and demand could come fought hard for the continued production
Secretary of State Dean Rusk. Into balance late this year. of manned bombers and fighter planes. See-
AT FIRST SUCCESS The United States is also expanding Its retary McNamara, determined to hold down own sugar output. So are the Philippines, defense costs and considering such new
The story of how the law of supply and Mexico,, Australia, South Africa and other airmenplanes's s a
waste of money, has resisted the
demand wrecked the best laid plans of the nations. But the experts are predicting that demands. And in a campaign year,
State Department to bring Castro to his world sugar prices will range upward of $110 the state of the Nation's defenses provides
knees goes back to July 6, 1960. On that a ton (5 cents a pound) in future years. a rich field for partisan charges and counter-
y, President Eisenhower ordered an end If much beneath the $187 a ton which sugar charges. Just as the Democrats in 1960
to U.S. purchases of Cuban sugar. This was commanded In 1963, that $110 Is about what raised charges of a "missile gap" that later
a heavy blow to El Maximo, as the Cubans the United States used to pay. Proved nonexistent, Republicans soon began
then called Castro. The United States had calling the announcement of the A-11 mis-
been purchasing about 3 million tons ' of FEARLESS FORECAST - leading. One Republican on the House
Cuban sugar a year, more than half of the Recently, Dr. Carlos Rodriguez, head of the Armed Services Committee, FRANK BECKER,
country's crop, and paying the U.S. price Cuban Institute of Agrarian Reform, pre- frankly called it phony.
for it. dieted that Cuba would produce 10 million Once the announcement had been made,
The U.S. price, artificially pegged to sup- tons by 1970.2 Skeptical sugar brokers say however, the administration became unusu-
port domestic beet-sugar producers, was that this reminds them of Communist_ ally secretive about the wondrous A-11. De-
more than 2 cents a pound above the world China's claims for its "great leap forward," fense and Air Force information officers
price. For example, in 1959, when the world which proved a disaster. But if Castro can turned down all requests from reporters who
price averaged 2.97 cents a pound, the U.S, raise output enough to sell the non-Commu- wanted to learn more about the plane. Mc-
price averaged 5.74 cents. Sugar sales to the nisi world just 1,8 million tons, as Cuba Namara, who often in the past has answered
United States produced $355 million net in nearly did in 1959, he stands to reap from sensitive questions if they are put in writ-
good green 1959 dollars for Cuba. sugar a minimum of $200 million in cash ing, was approached by the Saturday Eve-
Ti,e Soviet Union came to Castro's rescue from now on. ning Post with some new questions:
by agreeing to buy his surplus sugar at 4 We may expect to hear from our allies, "Is the A-11 now a fully developed inter-
cents -pound. This was not only less than ever more clearly, "It's not that we don't ceptor?"
Castro had been receiving from the United sympathize, you understand. But money is Ii not, how vigorously will the A-I1 be
States; even more important, the Russians''developed as an interceptor?"
didn't pay in cash but in barter of other In response to these questions, the De-
products. The U.S. ban on the purchase of fense Department refused to elaborate on
Cuban sugar thus cut by almost 75 percent" THE GREAT A-11 DECEPTION what President Johnson had said about the
the annual inflow of what the Cubans call% Mr. ALLOTT. Mr. President, I sub- plane in his press conference.
divisa; that is, foreign exchange. mit, and ask to have made a part of m Yet, unlike the standard interceptor, which
Castro then couldn't buy : neh buses and
remarks in the RECORD, an article from ons esystem as they A 111e wascarr
designed for a
French trucks and Spanish fishing boats be- the Saturday Evening Post Of May 2, wholly different purpose which President
cause he couldn't begin to pay for them. 1964, entitled "The Great A-11 Decep- Johnson didn't mention at all: reconnals-
Our allies could easily honor the U.S. em- tion." sance. It looks like a giant dart.
bargo; they had nothing to lose. The shaft
is a fuselage 90 feet long. Far out toward
the , that It
The U.S. Department of Agriculture is th
e rest ointof sothefar aircraft s lsmthe cockpit for
' Sugar is measured in metric tons, 2,204.6 . forecasting a 1964 crop of only 3.6 million
pounds to a ton' the two-man crew. At the rear of the fuse-
tons, somewhat less than the 1963 crop. lage are two huge engines and, almost as an
Sanitized -Approved For Release.: CIA-RDP75-00149R000100090007-8